Nature of God/dess

I've been pondering the nature of God/dess the last few days. I "believe" in "one god," or Deity, if you will. This Deity is usually celebrated, worshipped, etc as either the Goddess alone, or the Goddess and God together. I fall into the second category. When I pray or do rituals/spells, I call upon the Goddess and God, despite the fact that I see them as equal but opposite sides of Deity (rather like the Chinese yin and yang.)

I suppose those Christians who actually put thought into how the Holy Trinity functions as one in three and three in one feel about as mixed up as I do on the subject of Deity/God+Goddess/gods+goddesses. There is Deity, who is divided into the masculine and feminine God and Goddess, who are further divided into gods and goddesses who are associated with the differing aspects or faces of the Goddess and God. At least, that's how I see the divisions. There are the "hard polytheists" out there, who believe each and every god and goddess are their own separate deity, and may all the gods and spirits in existence help you if you say Zeus, Thor, and Jupiter are the same being! I am a "soft polytheist" as I see the lines between deities as much more blurred.

Viewing the gods in this light, it's hard for me to assign names to them. It makes little sense, in the big scheme of things. But I think calling upon the gods using specific names makes sense from time to time. Sometimes we need that extra symbolism and connotation that is associated with that name. For instance, my son is behind with his speech and language development, despite a year+ of ear tubes and speech therapy. So when we do certain activities (reading, flash cards, or other games that involve speaking on his end) I call upon Baile (BAWL-uh), the God of Blarney, who is associated with glib speech, quick speech, and verbal communication, as well as Nessa, who aids in increasing mental abilities and helps look out for the interests of children. This evening, we will be calling upon and thinking of Brigit as we make our Priapic wands (will blog about this tomorrow!) for Imbolc.